Author
Topic: Documentary of a 400m build (Read 6995 times)

I thought I would sequentially detail my build, to show newcomers what goes into one of these ships and also (since I am one of those newcomers) to open myself up to the larger community's advice, comments and critiques.

This is my first ship. I decided to start big, I figure this is a project I can chip away at a few hours at a time, since multiplayer is a ways in the future yet.

Hull Dimensions are L-W-H 400-200-140 and the shape is loosely based on the star-destroyer design philosophy of narrowing to a point to allow the most guns to be brought to bear forward while presenting a small target.

It was designed as a heavy destroyer for spearheading a destroyer flotilla, but when we see how large the average creation winds up being I can see it being moved into the cruiser role, which shouldn't be much of a problem.

Current working project title is Burgundy. Yes, I know it rhymes with Normandy and they're both regions in France. Didn't actually occur to me when I chose it, but that's the title for now until inspiration strikes me.

Update: I have moved 'bonus pictures', i.e. pictures not in the main sequence to the second page so that these will load faster.

And now, the day-by day:

Day 1

Spoiler

First day. Getting the hang of using the tools and realizing just how large even a 400m ship is.

Day 2

Spoiler

One hour of drunken shipbuilding. Not much progress.

Day 3

Spoiler

A lot of progress today. Big setback earlier when I discovered one of my previous measurements was off by 1 block. Unfortunately this offset the entire side of the ship, resulting in probably 80 tons of frame do-over.

Frame is complete, now beginning to fill in the outer shell. Interior framing for bridge area partially complete as well. The geometry is getting interesting in some areas of the fill, slowing progress a bit.

Day 4

Spoiler

Today was quite the day. She's tripled in mass and the rear is almost fully shelled now. Toughest part now is going to be the four front-side double-angled sections. The rear were 1:1 and 2:1, so they were relatively easy to merge, but the front has 4:1 and 3:1 slopes.

Oh, and she's confirmed to be facing backwards ingame. Huzzah.

Also had some issues with taking screenshots tonight: they were coming out all white, not picking up the game until I turned off the Aero desktop. Now using no hud for glamor shots as well.

Day 5

Spoiler

Progress majorly hampered today - my hands have gotten sore so I have to cut back on the work. I am unable to use macros for my keyboard and mouse ingame due to some stupid microsoft issue where you can't use the macros in a game if you run it with administrator privileges.

Week 2

Spoiler

It's been a while since my last update. Haven't been working on her every day, due to school and general life taking some of my time. Also, caved in and started BF3 and FONV. They're shelved again for a while.

But THE SHIP! She is clothed! I got my macros working, thereby saving my hands from torture and managed to pump out a massive amount of shelling. I would estimate it took me 8 solid days working on her. As suspected, the 4 frontal double-angled slabs took almost a day's work each. I like the look of the finished product though, some very cool angles inside and out. I'll upload the file shortly if anyone wants to take a tour around her.

My suggestion to you if you want this to be functional in future updates and not have to rework a lot is to just fill in the hull first, put your thrusters down, then put down your forward cannon, and finally determine a deck height you want and start laying down a grid for each floor. Once you have done all that let it sit and add stuff to it as more functional objects like life support and turrets are added.

I like your design so far but I would suggest making some sections rounded, like the sides of the ship. It would allow you to triple plate armor in many places.

Logged

"Quotes at the bottom of signatures are pointless. Just like this one."

I've been using the game for a while now, so here is what i've learned.

*The center of mass options never stays in the exact center as it should, it moves if one side or part is heavier than the next. ie: with a plain frame of a cube, completely open to space, the center marker WILL be dead center as its meant to, but if you fill in the walls, it will not be center until all walls are completed due to weight ratio. So if you want something in the center, build it when your done all the walls..ect.

*plasma turrets back to back make long really cool beams, or you can use the plasma distribution thingies.

*always start building small, you took on a big project. im doing a 100x100x100 borg cube, and it will take me another month to finish it completely.

Thanks for the advice. I'm definitely not going to try to use the center of mass marker for any measurements, I measure everything off of an x,y,z axis I built at the center of my ship and marked off every 10 blocks. As for starting small, I'm a sucker for punishment. I'll race you to see who can finish their project first.

In other news; bonus pictures when I finish for today. It's already doubled in mass again as I flesh it out.

Also, confirmed to be facing directly backwards of the default direction. Two courses of action here, either hope for a flip tool or just be obtuse and rebind all my controls so it makes sense.

Don't worry if your facing backwards the helmpads can face different directions so whatever direction your facing doesn't really matter. I have a ship that I'm finishing up that can fly both forwards and backwards and it seems to work fine, so I wouldn't worry about it.

I too have started on a rather large undertaking, got about a 70Lx123Wx71H section completed in 49 hours of build time.It currently weighs in at 8,338,371 kg, building for detail is time consuming. Just waiting on build tools to continue the project beyond the tiny auxilliary 70Lx64Wx20H hanger with ribs for a floor it has now.

That's funny, your ship dimensions are the exact same as my main hanger bay's dimensions.

I too have started on a rather large undertaking, got about a 70Lx123Wx71H section completed in 49 hours of build time.It currently weighs in at 8,338,371 kg, building for detail is time consuming. Just waiting on build tools to continue the project beyond the tiny auxilliary 70Lx64Wx20H hanger with ribs for a floor it has now.

That's funny, your ship dimensions are the exact same as my main hanger bay's dimensions.

Same dimensions as your main hangar? Looking to challenge the SH and the Nist or something? Do you have pictures up?

I'm not concerned about burnout because I see it as no loss - I'll just take a break for a month and when I come back there will be new features to keep me engaged.